Regardless of its technical faults, there is bravery here as Lopez opens up her old wounds for all to see, sharing her biggest mistakes, her deepest scars, and the work she put in to heal herself first, before she could be ready for the love story that she grew up so desperately wishing for.

Players, written by Whit Anderson and directed by Trish Sie, struggles with the inherent artificiality of its setup. The tropes are so front and center that real life barely has any room to breathe.

The real gem of this documentary are the incredible first person accounts from those who were there.

Within these oversaturated times for comic book movies, Madame Web is blissfully breezy in its pacing, which helps make it a more enjoyable watch than some of the super-serious, end-of-the-world fare we often see.

Even for a picaresque plot comprised of incidents and moments, it's a flat and disjointed effort that lurches forward and stops and lurches forward again throughout its brief running time—a labor of love that doesn't deliver.

In "Here," what matters is not what is offered, but the act of offering itself.

It’s all either whimsically charming or annoyingly cute, depending on your temperament. The thing that keeps the film from spinning out into the atmosphere (literally or figuratively, your choice) is the chemistry between Mamet and Athari.

Perhaps with less questions left unanswered, “Drift” would permit a more sympathetic lead, but the flatness and flippance of its context leaves everything on the surface.

There’s a slack nature to the film that almost feels like it has to be an intentional experiment from a filmmaker who has been so precise and intricate with his work in the past. It’s as if Kim is testing himself to see if he could make a self-indulgent, unsubstantial lark of a comedy. He can. Sorta. Now let’s get back to the good stuff.

This is not your typical “bank robbery gone wrong” kind of movie, nor does it follow the familiar beats of a Bonnie and Clyde-style “lovers on the lam” story. “Marmalade” is a strange mix of its own, launching the rom com criminal premise to thrilling heights.

The story told in “Out of Darkness” is ultimately sad more than terrifying, a parable about violence and the roots of human war. It’s an impressively credible and gnarly journey back in time.

The subject is one of the most innovative and influential composers of all time but the documentary that tells his story is very conventional, with chronological archival footage and talking head interviews given by the composer and his co-workers.

Lusciously lensed by cinematographer Jigme Tenzing, the ensemble comedy examines how the country’s upcoming mock elections affect the titular monk, a rural family, an election official, and a desperate liason from the city, all of whose lives collide in minor and major ways.

There is a curious datedness, monotony and lack of excitement throughout “Lisa Frankenstein,” that feels dull despite its preferred power-ballad “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon, and colorless in spite of its magenta-heavy production design. In its best moments, Williams’ debut feels very much like its central monster—undead, but with no place to go. It’s a cosmic disappointment.

With sharp character design, entertaining dialogue, and positive messaging, “Orion and the Dark” is an early-year Netflix original surprise.

Alex Schaad’s feature debut “Skin Deep” is a stripped-down sci-fi drama that takes its time to explore the social and romantic ramifications of its simple premise.

More than anything, “How to Have Sex” is masterful in showcasing the drive and apprehension of sexual coming of age.

It feels like this material could have been a bodice-ripping melodrama in less intuitive hands. But "The Promised Land" has control of its narrative.

The Tiger’s Apprentice is not an awful movie per se—some of the animation is striking and there are a couple of funny moments—but it is one of those frustrating exercises that seems to have assembled all the elements for a genuinely innovative film and then fails to make much of them.

Scafidi’s movie appropriately reflects its director’s neurotic need to show all the different ways you can think about Argento and his art.

Nellie's world may feel scrambled, but McKendrick knows where she is going and how to take us with her.

There’s no real tension in this murder mystery (or much mystery, for that matter), the kills aren’t clever, and eventually this part of the story ends up feeling entirely unnecessary.

There’s something about the savagery of “Conann” that’s freed the director to really go there, birthing a ferocious, fabulous Athena out of his splitting forehead.

It’s a shame. Argylle had the potential to be a whissmart parody. It unfortunately just seems to get tired of being the butt of the joke before it can deliver the punchline. But in attempting to avoid becoming a gag—laboring to connect this film with the Kingsman franchise—Vaughn imbues his film with anonymity, making it merely forgettable.

The movie reminded me of what Peter Bogdanovich said of Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”: that it "is not a young man’s movie; it has the wisdom and poetic perceptions of an artist knowingly nearing the end of his life and career." The wisdom and poetry here are just as real and just as thoroughly felt.

Fighter never strays far from the path that other movies like it have previously charted, but it still delivers most of what it promises.

The one constant of life is change, and our own individual relations to the place we grew up, or came of age, in are invariably complicated not by just the alterations in the landscape but the way our perspectives shift...The Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho understands this feeling just as well as I and maybe you do, and he’s made a lovely, enveloping film about it, called “Pictures of Ghosts.”

This is an unusually intelligent and purposeful movie that doesn't say much, but is full of feeling.